


Young and Lovely

by nagoyadelay



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Applying Makeup, Character Study, Fluff With a Slight Undercurrent of Melancholy Because it's Pre-Series Victor, Friendship, Gen, Hair Dyeing, Pre-Canon, The Real Reason Why Victor Cut His Hair: Revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 17:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13369191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagoyadelay/pseuds/nagoyadelay
Summary: When asked, Christophe tells others that being friends with Victor Nikiforov is great; wonderful; fun.  And it's true.But being friends with Victor is complicated.  You don’t want to push too much, and you’re never quite sure where you stand.(Chris comes through for Victor, and they become friends; later, he’s surprised when Victor comes through for him.)





	Young and Lovely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LambieLamb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LambieLamb/gifts), [Proserpineceres](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Proserpineceres/gifts).



> This started life many, many (too many) months ago as a prompt from Lambie and Pine… then a second prompt from Pine that inspired the second half of this fic… then it went from being a prompt to nearly 5k of friendship. Hope you both enjoy it <3

Upon meeting Victor Nikiforov for the first time, Christophe was dazzled, charmed, and very much in awe of him.  Thrilled that Victor had even stopped to talk to him that day, that Victor had thrown him a rose.  Everyone knew that Victor had potential like few ever had in the sport; already he seemed like an unreachable star, high above the universe. Chris began pushing himself even harder at practices, working with the laser-guided focus of someday beating Victor, of finally being the best.

Upon meeting Victor Nikiforov for the second time, however, Chris received an entirely different impression…

* * *

Christophe Giacometti feels good about his program this year, enthusiastic; he's realistic about his chances his first year in seniors. He's not a natural, not a skating genius like others, but he works hard.  His motivation is outside forces; if Chris keeps going, someday he can defeat the geniuses, the prodigies, the top of the top in the sport.  He'll crush skaters like Victor Nikiforov.

His step sequences are slightly sloppy today in this particular rink, in his final practice just a day before his Worlds short program - he doesn't know Finnish, but you don't have to in order to be able to recognize FINNAIR in big block letters on this particular rink's ads.  He focuses on a Nokia advertisement to try not to concentrate so hard on his feet.  Once he's aware his feet are beneath him and moving, that's when he's most likely to fail.   _ Just breathe, Chris, _ he thinks to himself.   _ Think about other things.  Cats.  Cologne ads.  The gleaming white-silver side of a Swiss mountaintop. _

He realizes that the gleaming white-silver he's looking at is Victor Nikiforov's hair, on the other side of the ice; Victor's staring at him, appearing to ignore whatever his coach is lecturing him about.  Is it possible that Victor remembers him from Europeans?  Chris smiles at the thought of being memorable to someone like Victor.  He'll have to go over to say hello.

* * *

Later that evening, while walking back from dinner with his coach, he spots Victor sitting with Yakov in the lobby, looking bored while Yakov converses with a group of men and women that he doesn't recognize from other competitions - sponsors, he thinks, or perhaps other coaches.  He only ever sees Victor with the adults and not other skaters, which is strange; Victor didn't seem rude or unkind.  Chris was friendly with several skaters in juniors.  Though most of the other seniors were older than Victor, he supposes, and the ones that weren't might be intimidated.  

Chris isn't going to be intimidated.

He parts from his coach.  "Victor!" He says, waving.  

Victor looks confused for a moment before waving back. "The boy of the Swiss meadows!"

"Yes, that's me!  Christophe."

"I saw your skate earlier."

"And?" Chris leans in, waiting for what he expects will be well-earned praise from a competitor whose skating he adores.

"Well, your step sequences are terrible.  Really, really bad.  And you need to not lean so heavily on that ‘innocent boy frolicking with sheep' persona if you want to grow as a skater.  You're not going to look like that forever," he says, gesturing vaguely towards Chris's body.

"I know," Chris says in the brattiest voice he can muster.  "I'm not stupid."  Victor's bluntness could be kind of off-putting.  No wonder he had been sitting with Yakov and not mingling with other skaters.

Victor frowns.  "I’m not saying that to be mean.  When I was your age, I grew three inches in a year and went up several skate sizes. It's hard.  My arms felt like lampposts.  But now look at me!  Totally different."

"Uh-huh."

"The one bad thing is that you can hardly see my eyelashes.  I thought they'd get darker as I got older."

"But your hair is light silver."

Victor blushes.  "Not all of it."  Chris coughs and can't stop coughing.

"Anyway," Victor says, ignoring Chris's coughing, "I wish my eyelashes looked more like yours.  Maybe you can you show me how to put on mascara the way that you do."

Chris looks at Victor in disbelief.  "Are you kidding?  These eyelashes are one hundred percent real."

Before Chris can stop him, Victor reaches out a hand to tug on Chris's eyelashes; one comes off in his hand.

Chris jumps back from Victor.   “ _ Putain! _  Victor?!"

"I just wanted to make sure they weren't false lashes."  Victor closes his eyes and blows the rogue eyelash away from his finger.  "Sorry, I had to make a wish."  

"You can't wish on someone else's eyelash!"

"Is there a rule against it?"

"Probably."  

"But anyway… do you know how to put on any makeup?  I'd like to learn, but I don't have anyone I can ask.  Yakov's wife does mine when I skate, but I'd like to learn how to do it on my own so you can see my eyelashes."  Victor leans in with a conspiratorial whisper.  "A photographer followed me down the street today.  Candid photos! Yakov chased him off.  But I feel like - when this happens,  I should probably look a certain way.  Flawless."

Chris looked up to Victor to the point where he couldn't believe that Victor had anything he was self-conscious about; turns out, it's his pale eyelashes.  "I have help with foundation for competitions," Chris responds, "But we could probably figure it out together.  Go buy a tube and bring it to my room later.  Room 612."

"Okay," Victor says.

 

* * *

“I’m so excited,” Victor says as he enters Chris’s room later that evening.  "Can you imagine my eyes standing out even _more_?"

Chris laughs at Victor's shameless vanity.  In a way, it makes him more approachable.  

“Did you bring the tube?”  

“Yeah.”  Victor opens his hand; there’s a rectangular gold tube stamped with  _ Guerlain _ on one side.  “Lilia picked it out.”

“Lilia has high standards,” Chris remarks, taking the tube from Victor and turning it over in his hand.  “Mine’s from Carrefour.”

“So how are we going to do this?”

“Well, you’ll watch me do it, and then it will be your turn to try," Chris says.

"You're not going to put the mascara on for me?"

"Does Yakov skate your routines for you in competitions?"  Victor shrugs.  "I didn't think so."  Chris grabs two pillows from the bed.

"What are you doing?" Victor asks.

"I'm putting these on the bathroom counter so we have a soft place to kneel in front of the mirror."

"We're going to kneel on top of the counter?"

"If you're doing your own makeup for the first time, you're going to want to get as close to the mirror as possible, and this is the only mirror we have."

"Fine," Victor says.  He hoists himself onto the counter, positioning himself in front of the mirror.  He smiles at his own face and tucks the stray hairs that have escaped from his ponytail behind his ears, swishing the ponytail it back and forth as he studiously looks at his reflection.  Chris is dying to know how much time Victor spends looking at himself on any given day.

“You think I’m vain,” Victor says, as if reading Chris’s mind.

“Well, yeah.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh?”

“There’s nothing wrong with thinking you look nice if it’s true.”

Chris positions himself so he’s kneeling in front of the mirror next to Victor.  He thinks that maybe he can think of himself as handsome, too.  As someone worth getting to know.

“I need to look perfect every single day, though, if cameras are going to keep following me," Victor continues.  "Maybe I should get a balaclava for those days when I’m just not feeling it.”

“Maybe you should.”  

Victor turns his body towards Chris.  "Can you do one eye and I'll do the other?  So that I’m less likely to do it wrong?”

“Okay.”  Chris twists his body away from the mirror so that he's facing Victor.  "Look up.  With your eyes, not your head."   Victor rolls his eyeballs to fixate on an uneven speck in the room's questionable popcorn ceiling.  Chris begins to slowly coat the left eyelashes closest to Victor’s nose, wiggling the brush as he paints in order to keep the mascara from clumping.

When Chris finishes, he wordlessly pulls back, allowing Victor some space to look.  

“Wow, amazing!”  

“Do you think you can do it?”

“Yes,” Victor says, taking the mascara wand from Chris’s hand.  Victor leans forward so that his eyes are millimeters away from the mirror.  He gracefully moves the wand towards the base of his lashes.

He accidentally stabs himself in the eyeball.

"Fuck!" Victor cries out, turning quickly and scrambling down from the counter, holding his eye.

Chris snorts.  ”The makeup doesn't go in your eye.”

"I'm going to go blind, and it's your fault," Victor glares as Chris as much as he can with one eye open and the other being covered by a wet washcloth.

"Stop being so dramatic," Chris says.  “We’ll let your eye rest, and then you can try again.”  

Victor holds the mascara out to Chris.  “Do you want to try using this?”  

Chris looks at him in horror.  "Sharing mascara is disgusting.  I’ll use my own, thanks.  Now watch and observe so you don’t injure yourself again.”

 

* * *

After taking the time to recover, Victor finishes his right eye and blinks twice; his eyes look otherworldly now that they’re framed by dark lashes - there are a few spots where the mascara could have been applied more evenly, and a few lashes are stuck together on the outer edge of his right eye, but with practice he’d get better at application.  “Wow,” he says.  “Not bad.  Thanks, Chris!”  

* * *

At the end-of-event banquet,  Victor smiles as he spots Chris and stands up from the table without a second thought.  "Chris!  Your skate was pretty good.  The angelic music was a good choice for you, although it was fairly predictable.  You should try surprising people more in the future."

"Okay," Chris nods.

"Also, your spins aren't that great," Victor continues.  "And the transition into that second axel was horrible - why were your feet in that position?  You'll have to do a lot better to qualify for the GPF someday."

"Uh…"  Chris is at a loss for words.  Finally, he settles upon, "Well, uh… you fell and I didn't."

Victor looks taken aback for a moment, then breaks out into a heart-shaped smile.  "You're right," he says.  "Anyway, if I had to lose, at least Stephane won.  And he told me that my skating was inspiring!  Inspiring!"

"That's incredible," Chris says, a little jealous. Lambiel had never told  _ him _ that his skating was inspiring.

"I had a lot of fun," Victor says.  "I don't get to do this a lot."

Chris wasn't sure what Victor meant by this - putting on makeup?  But then he followed up by saying,  "Maybe we can hang out at other competitors, too."

"Of course," Chris says.  "We're friends now."

"Good!" Victor says.  "And give me your number so I can call you."  Victor pulls his phone out of his pocket.  "And your email.  But don't be mad if I forget sometimes, okay?"

"Okay."  Chris understands; he's started to realize how difficult the life of a professional athlete can be, busy and stressful and punishing and lonely with many, many personal sacrifices.  And that's with him being able to live at home with involved and supportive parents. He's heard the whispers that Victor's parents have never been spotted at any of his competitions; he wonders who Victor leans on for emotional support, if anyone at all.

Chris checks his email a few days later to find an email from Victor with no subject; it contains nothing but a link to some sort of Russian website and a smiley face.  Chris decides that it's probably not a virus and clicks it anyway; it appears to be some sort of Russian celebrity site, with a paparazzi photo of Victor playing with his dog.  His eyelashes are black and full.

* * *

Victor is different now.

Somewhere on the road between being the promising young prodigy and transforming into the living legend, he has lost much of the guilelessness that defined him as a youth.  Chris worries about Victor, but what can he do?  He usually sees Victor at competitions, and the last thing he wants to do to Victor before a competition is probe at his feelings in a way that could affect his skating.  And Chris has changed, too; he's lost the naivety and innocence that he exemplified both on and off the ice, and is fumbling his way through self-expression to find his most authentic self, someone who feels lived-in and comfortable and not just a performance.

It's interesting, Chris thinks, how Victor becomes more guarded every year as Chris becomes more free.

Chris understands that the demands of being the champion, the face of international figure skating, of Russia, of individualized sport must be immense; but he's not sure why Victor doesn't seem to be able to enjoy any part of it off the ice.  Chris knows that he would; he'd love the big-name sponsorships, the ad campaigns, the celebrity that would come with being as successful as Victor.  Chris wishes he could ask, but the two of them have an unspoken understanding that their friendship is strictly fun and light.

Besides, Chris doubts that Victor even knows how to open up to anyone.   He wonders if Victor has ever even been able to confront his own feelings or doubts or loneliness, or if they're just waiting beneath the surface. Victor's too busy working; if he stopped for a minute to think about anything besides skating, he might fall apart.

* * *

When Chris is 23, he arrives in Paris for Trophee de France as an absolute catastrophe.

His eyes are red, and his face is puffed-up and blotchy with the aftereffects of tears.  "I need someone who has more time for me," Frederique had said - and Chris understands, it can't be easy being with someone who has so little free time, who has to put their career first - but Chris had been very upfront about that when they started dating.  But then Frederique had continued: "I just don't think I'm that attracted to you," he had said - how dare he!  Chris was tall, tanned, and toned with a perfectly symmetrical face and a great ass. "I think I was more attracted to the fact that you were sort of famous."  Every word hurt more than the last - Chris thinks that he would have rather been ghosted than have to listen to the numerous painful reasons that his boyfriend had for breaking up with him.

Even more destroyed than his heart, however, is Chris's hair.  It's about ten different shades of orange, and it looks dreadful.

He'd dyed it black, carelessly and unevenly in a fit of sorrow, after four days of practice that had been total disasters; after falling on yet another quad lutz, he'd come to the hasty decision that if he changed something - anything - about himself, he'd be able to regain his confidence.  He'd quickly reasoned that significant hair changes are supposed to be a rite of passage after the sort of life event that leaves you heartbroken, vulnerable and wondering if you're the person you think yourself to be, and bought some box dye from Müller on his way home from the rink.  An hour later, he was left with a hideous, patchy, uneven mess.  He promptly tried to bleach it out, hoping that the bleach would take it back to his natural blonde.  But due to inexperience, he'd miscalculated, and ended up with a horrid pumpkin-esque misfire, orange, brittle, and dry.

Josef has said nothing the entire trip about the hair.  Chris keeps his hair concealed by a black wool beanie pulled low over his ears so that none of his tormented hair tufts bully their way out from underneath the hat.  He's never felt more unattractive.

When he sees Victor around the hotel and the rink, he mumbles a brief "hi" when he passes him in the hotel lobby and says nothing else.  He's not going to burden Victor with his problems.  They're not those kinds of friends.

* * *

There's one empty table at breakfast in the hotel restaurant the next morning. Chris is set to take it and sadly chew his way through an egg-white omelet while looking at his ex's Instagram and the Instagram of the new guy his ex has tagged when he hears Victor deliberately cough behind him.  Chris says nothing, just nods and allows Victor to follow him to the table.  

"Are you trying something new?"  Victor finally says with a small smile after they place their respective orders.

"Hmm?" Chris isn't really listening.

"The hat.  You've been wearing it for two days.  It's not that cold outside."

"It's freezing."

"Oh, well, not for Russians," Victor says breezily.  "I've never seen you wear a hat before."

Chris sighs and removes the beanie.  Victor's mouth opens slightly.

"Oh, that looks ridiculous."

"Don't you think I know that?" Chris snaps.  "I'm sorry," he says immediately after at seeing Victor's wounded expression.   "It was rude to snap at you.  But I don't know what to do.  I can't compete looking like this."

"What were you thinking?"  

"My boyfriend broke up with me."

"Frederique? That's too bad, I'm sorry."

"Yes.  But I thought that if I looked different, I'd feel differently.  Or at least feel not feel so… so tragic."

Victor frowns.  "Well, you certainly do look different."

Chris puts the beanie back on in hopes that Victor will stop staring at him.  "Remember when you cut your hair?  It was right before you won your first GPF gold medal.  I thought it would be like that, for me."

"But you remember why I cut it, yes?  It wasn't for some boy."

"But you did cut it for someone."

"It was important, Chris.  Makkachin was very scared to go to the new groomer after her old one suddenly closed, so I let them cut my ponytail with scissors so that she wouldn't be frightened.  And it worked, didn't it?  I would never dye Makkachin's fur, though.  Or my own.  Hair, not fur."

"Now I'm both heartbroken and homely," Chris says.  "I'm going to bomb the final while looking like a long-lost Weasley sibling.  My step sequences look even worse than Cao Bin's."

"Well, you're certainly not going to win," Victor says brightly.  "Because I am - ow!"  Victor holds up the napkin that Chris has thrown at him and makes a slight pouting face.  "But you're not going to bomb the final because hair can be fixed!  I'm sure there's a salon nearby that can fix it.  As long as you still have some.  There's no hope for Yakov."

Chris sighs.  "Right now I can't afford to have someone fix it."  The last of his budget for the month had been spent on travel expenses for Trophee de France.  An upgrade to a king-sized hotel bed for himself and Frederique that now just seemed endless and empty for one.

"I could do it."

"What?"

Victor puts his finger to his lower lip.  "If I can lighten it again – very carefully, following instructions to the letter – it should take the orange out, right?  I'm sure there's a youtube tutorial that we can watch together.  And it will be easier to have someone else working on your hair besides yourself."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."  Chris can't believe Victor is even offering to help; Chris would never have dreamed of asking him.

"Why?  Have I ever steered you wrong before?"

Chris remembers the years of friendship, particularly the ones before Victor began winning, winning, winning: he remembers puking for an hour in an airplane lavatory the day after the two of them stole a bottle of Lilia's super-strength vodka that had the consistency and taste of lighter fluid.  He remembers getting banned for life from the Magritte museum in Brussels because Victor dressed Makkachin up as a small child and put her in a stroller and someone discovered her just as they were looking at _The Treachery of Images_.  He remembers when Victor gifted him a monogrammed Adidas tracksuit for his 20th birthday, insisting that it was the height of cool, which nearly got Chris laughed out of Switzerland (though his Italian relatives were quite fond of it).

"I suppose you haven't," Chris says finally.  

* * *

Victor begins opening the small box labeled décolorant as the two of them sit on opposite sides of Chris's bed.  Every lamp in the room is turned up to the brightest setting; while Chris was purchasing bleach, Victor had somehow, somewhere gotten a press photographer to let him borrow some of their lights to make Chris's room the brightest place in all of Paris.    “The room looks nice with all these lamps,” Victor says.  “Maybe I should add more at home.”  He’s also procured a giant fan to help circulate the air.

"Have you ever done anyone else's hair before, Victor?"  Chris is having second thoughts; knowing what little he does about hair dye, a screw-up could cause most of it to break off.  And he'd look awful without hair.

"Of course I have!" Victor says cheerfully.  "I've helped braid for younger skaters who have long hair."  

"But… you've never bleached anyone's hair.  Not your own?"

Victor stops reading the instructions and glares at Chris.  "Christophe Giacometti.  You know that I was born with hair this color, and I will die with my hair this color."  

Chris looks at the just-barely-nearly-imperceptibly thinning spot of hair at the crown of Victor's head and thinks it's likely that Victor's going to die bald, but bites his tongue.

* * *

“While wearing gloves, open the bleach powder and pour it into the plastic tub.  Do not inhale bleach.”  Victor pours the powder carefully.  “Okay.  Add the full contents of the developer to the bleach powder in the plastic tub.  Using the provided brush, blend until all the powder is completely dissolved with no lumps.  Mix and blend until the mixture is smooth and creamy."  Chris can't help but snort unattractively.

He looks at Victor.

Victor looks at him.

The two of them burst out laughing.

”The manufacturer could have worded that differently, right?  Given how this looks?”  Chris is wiping tears from his eyes.

“Chris, you’re horrible.”

“You were thinking it, too!”

* * *

Victor checks over Chris’s scalp to make sure he hasn’t missed any spots before fitting a plastic cap over Chris’s hair.  “We’ll check on it again in about ten minutes to see if the hair’s going back to blonde.  Does any part of your scalp itch?"

"Just a little bit at the top of my forehead, where you got a bit generous with the hair goop.”  Chris wets a white washcloth and dabs at his forehead, careful to avoid the bleached hairs.  He hopes he's not going to get charged for any damage to the towels.  But they're in France, after all - the towels have probably seen much worse. 

“Why were you avoiding me all week?” Victor suddenly asks.

“Oh… you noticed?" 

"Yes.  Who else am I going to talk to?  Other skaters aren't interested in me."

Chris thinks that couldn't be further from the truth, but says nothing, because reading between the lines of Victor-speak he means interested in him as a person, not as a skater.  Every GPF competitor would die to be Victor's friend, just in case some talent rubbed off.  Victor had to know by this point how intimidating he was.   And sometimes - though they were friends - Chris still hoped for some of Victor's talent to rub off on him.

"I didn't want to bother you with my problems.” 

"Why not?" 

"Because it's bad form to dump your troubles on others before they skate."   _ And, _ Chris thinks,  _ I didn’t think we were those kinds of friends.  But maybe we are - at least on my end.  I don’t expect you to share your deepest, darkest fears with me anytime soon. _

Victor grins.  "I'm Victor Nikiforov.  I can handle it.  We’re friends!  Besides, you could tell me anything and I’d still win.”

* * *

"The back is still too dark," Chris frowns, examining the aftermath of the bleach job.  “But the top looks so much better.“

"Hmm," Victor says, examining Chris's scalp.  "What if we just shaved that part off?"

"Like an undercut?"

"Exactly," Victor says.  "I think it would look nice on you."

"The hair needs to be able to work with my glasses and my contacts," Chris says.  "It's no good only to have hair that works for one or the other."

"It will look great!  I'm sure someone around here has some clippers that we could use."

"Ugh, Victor, that's how you end up with lice.  I have clippers in my suitcase.”

* * *

Chris pats the left pocket of his suit pants to make sure that his medal is still in there.  It's still silver, but it’s the first time he’s ever bested Victor’s free skate - too bad Victor’s short had been so much better than his - and he plans to savor that fact that in one aspect, at least, he was the better skater for as long as he possibly can.  And he’s received an extraordinary amount of compliments on his new haircut to boot.  

Victor is treating this gold like every other he’s ever received - gracious towards his fellow competitors, and making sure that everyone who approaches him gets a bright, camera-ready grin.

After spending time with sponsors and other well-wishers, Chris excuses himself to get a drink.  He's reaching for a glass of mid-range champagne when a hand brushes against his; it belongs to a gorgeous man with shoulder-length brown hair and deep-set eyes.

"Please, take it," the man says.

"No, after you."

"I insist."

"Well, if you insist," Chris gives the man his most dazzling smile, takes the glass and hands the second one to the mystery man.

"I loved your program today," the man says.  "The amount of height you were able to get on your quad lutz was incredible.  And you had such emotion in your skating.  It was beautiful."

"Thank you," Chris says.

The man holds out a hand to Chris.  "Would you care for a dance?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> [Rayjinar drew a wonderful picture of Chris and Victor putting on mascara!](https://nagoyadelay.tumblr.com/post/176415915252/rayjinar-chris-putting-mascara-on-viktor-from)
> 
> Big thanks to [spookyfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot) for the beta read (YOU ARE THE BEST), and to TKK for answering all of my hair bleach reaction questions <3 Bleaching instructions cribbed from Manic Panic’s Flash Lighting Bleach Kit. 
> 
> Tell me about your favorite eye makeup or hair disasters on Tumblr at [nagoyadelay](http://nagoyadelay.tumblr.com).


End file.
